Andrew Jefford: A glowing orange-russet in color. Dense, casky, camphory: the aromas summon lodge or bodega with that distinctive combination of sweet aerial fruit notes, very vaulting and enveloping, and the earthy, moist, almost mossy or ferny bass notes of the raked floor. In the mouth, the wine is tangy, light-bodied, graceful, and incisive, with a vivid structural acidity that is spliced to rich, dried apricot flesh. It’s sweet, but that acidity and those wood distillates almost give it a finishing dryness. Soprano fortified; the soaring but elegiac notes of Strauss’s Four Last Songs; that kind of thing... Jolly nice 16.5

Richard Mayson: Mid-amber; olive-green rim. Savory aromas, concentrated with a slightly cheesy character on the nose—not rancid like some but very characteristic of a Madeira from the ’60s or ’70s; rich dried-apricot and marmalade character, richness offset by a streak of acidity leading to a long savory sweet finish. Young to middle-aged Vintage Madeira, methinks 17.5 Jancis Robinson: Yellow/greenish pale tawny. Very sweet, sticky; less noble aromas. A little thin on the mid-palate. Very marked acidity on the finish. Too old? The overall impression is certainly not of a particularly sweet wine. But it’s impressively long. Drink 1990–2015 17